c&.&or of Barbarous Mekico wew York THE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE Hands Off Mexico *Y JOHN KENNETH TURNER (.4uthor of airbarour Mexico) The Care Against Intervention. The Zntervention Conspiracy. Wilson and Intewention A Solution for the Mexican “Problem.” lyew York ‘l-HE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 198 Copyright RAND SCHOLL OF SOCIAL SCIENCK 7 EAST 15~~ STREET NEW YORK 1920 Hands Off Mexico I. FOREWORD Our next armed expedition in force into Mexico is almost certain to result in formal war on both sides, followed by an effort at complete subjugation. The General Staff of the United States Army has been quoted as estimating that it will take 450,000 men three and one-half years to pacify Mexico. General Staffs are usually optimistic in judging their own capa- city for conquest. We shall not only have a war abroad indefinitely, but an indefinite prolongation of war conditions at .home. We shall again have conscription, bond issues, and every other form of sacrifice and repression to which the public has been subjected during the past three years. American militarism and espionage will become chronic. Reaction will be more firmly seated in the saddle than ever before. There can be no more important issue than the issue of war with Mexico; for all other issues are tied up with it. The forces of progress will have to gather swift strength or they will feel the crunch of the Iron Heel. The disaster to America will hardly be less than that to Mexico. 3 Intervention in Mexico has been determined upon by Wall Street and the Wilson Administration. The plan is to put it over before the forces working for real democracy, disorganized dur- ing the war and still on the defensive, have had a period of legal peace in which to reorganize and expose the crimes of the past.* Although the intervention conspiracy is an inevitable result of recent events, its success is not inevitable. There is a fighting chance to frustrate it. The longer it can be postponed the greater the probability of its ultimate failure. The immediate success of the intervention conspiracy de- pends largely upon the present tremendous effort to manufacture and mobilize public opinion for the purpose, through the dissem- ination of false statements regarding conditions in Mexico, the character of the Mexican Government. the relations between the United States and Mexico, and the obligations of the Amer- ican people in the circumstances. The case for intervention is entirely without merit. The motives of the conspiracy are purely financial. There is a prac- ticable and honorable solution for the so-called Mexican problem not involving intervention, This pamphlet is an effort to sketch the more important details. c If the Wilson Administration can be shown to be a party to the intervention conspiracy, it would seem to be obvious that it would then be ‘the most dangerous factor therein. For such l January 22, (1920), we were informed that the Mexican Government had offered to grant temporary permits for the resumption of drilling upon oil wells already begun and that the oil corporations had accepted the offer. This does not mean that there has been a settlement of the controversy. The statements of both Carranza and of his Secretary of Finance, Cabrera, indicate that there is no intention of abandoning Article 27, but that the “temporary relief” .1s intended only until the Mexican Congress enacts the petroleum law enforcing the constitutional provision. By this concession Carranza pulls the teeth of the oil shortage scare, staged in this country for the sole purpose of manufacturing pro-intervention sentiment. It is only another evidence of his determina- tion to avoid war at all costs short of relinquishing Mexican sovereignty and the economic program of the revolution. That Carranza has not surrendered to Wall Street is evi- dented by the fact that the interventionists have not abated their propaganda or their plots, Except for a partial relief of the immediate tension, the situation remains (Feb- ruary, 1929) a8 described in this pamphlet.-J. K. T. 4 . a conspiracy could never attain its object without the active dooperation of the executive branch of the Government. The oil companies cannot themselves and an American army into Mexico. Nor can the American press. Nor can a handful of Republican and Democratic politicians. If war comes between the United States and Mexico within any near period it will almost surely come, not by any deliberate choice of the American people, or even of their duly elected rep- resentatives, but only as a sequel to clashes with Mexican Gov- ernment forces, after American forces have invaded Mexico in a “punitive expedition,” to “protect American lives and prop- erty,” or under some other pretext, by order of the Executive. The only part Congress is likely to play will be to legalize an accomplished fact. In any event, Congress will not take any decisive action not thoroughly approved by the Executive. Even if the League of Nations takes cognizance of the matter, it will only be to sanc- tify a program first determined upon by the Government of the United States. The real choice of time, place, and action, will rest with the President. Any adequate consideration of the intervention plot, there- fore, must include an inquiry into the extent to which the Admin- istration has revealed a willingness to serve the purposes of the persons and interests seeking intervention. 2. SOURCE OF THE CONSPIRACY The parties to the conspiracy, insofar as they include finan- cial and industrial interests, are identified by the published membership of the National Association for the Protection of American Rights in Mexico. In this organization is represented America’s richest banking, mining, and industrial corporations, 5 headed by J, P. Morgan & Co., the National City Bank, Standard Oil, the Mexican Petroleum Company, the Intercontinental -Rub- ber Company ; and the Phelps-Dodge, Greene-Cannanea, and other components of the Morgan-Ryan-Guggenheim Copper Trust. These are also the richest corporations having a stake in Mexico. Every member of the National Association for the Protec- tion of American Rights in Mexico presumably approves of its work and shares responsibility for it. Although this organization has stated, on occasion, that it does not seek intervention, an examination of its literature proves this to be an equivocation. It asks for “protection” of a sort that the existing Mexican Government has never been willing to grant. In asking for “protection” of the American Government and the American people, it implies that it does not expect to procure such “pro- tection” from the Mexican Government, except through the application of external force, or the threat of force. Intervention, as defined in international law, is interference by one govern- ment in the affairs of another, either by the use of force or the threat of force; it is efective intervention exactly to the extent to w.hich the affairs of the invaded or threatened nation are influ- enced or controlled by such invasion or threats. The Bulletin of the National Association for the Protection of American Rights in Mexico itself prints open appeals for the use of force in Mexico, and’ editorially expresses approval of such appeals. This organization, and the Association of Oil Producers of Mexi?!o, a sub-division of it, between them, admit refusal of their members to comply with Mexican laws, boast of defiance of the authority of the Mexican Government, admit the support of an in- surgent army upon Mexican soil as a means to defying such authority. The hostile situation between members of these organiza- tions and the Mexican Government, as portrayed by the press matter of the former, is one that obviously cannot long be main- tained. Either the oil operators will control the Mexican Gov- ernment, or the Mexican Government will control the oil 6 operators, at least insofar as the immediate issues between them are concerned. The Mexican Government is going to succeed in asserting its sovereignty, or it is going to fail to do so. One side or the other will have to yield. The oil operators acknowledge that they will choose intervention in preference to yielding. No essential fact is lacking to prove that Wall Street seeks interven- tion except a straightforward confession that the word “inter- vention” fits the thing that it seeks. Wall Street is apparently not yet ready to make such a confession. It is afraid of the word. Public opinion is not yet sufficiently mobilized to look with complacence upon the sinister circumstances which the word implies. Meanwhile, an important fraction of the American press industriously agitates for the act itself, while a number of Senators and Congressmen have joined the chorus from the floors of their respective Houses. Interven- tion by any other name will smell as sweet to the Mexican oil king. In view of the fact that publications and politicians who attack Mexico nowadays do not suggest any remedy except intervention, that, indeed, the remedies they suggest invariably involve some form of intervention, all present attacks upon Mexico or the Mexican Government may fairly be termed pro- intervention propaganda. Pro-intervention propaganda we have always had with us, but never, before the organization of the National Association for the Protection of American Rights in Mexico, in January, 1919, has it been so voluminous, so undisguised and aggressive ; never before was it possible to establish its source beyond ques- tion. The assertions and arguments of both press and politicians are an echo of those of the National Association for the Protec- tion of American Rights in Mexico. Although a part of the press propaganda can be traced directly to this organization, it is not necessary so to trace it in order to establish the position of the press in the conspiracy.